Ontology of Avulsion: Posthuman Freedom and Accidental Becoming Page: 29
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rigidly bind the lines and limits of non-human becoming. Ethically, the reactive forces are the
forces for the continuity of habituated societal structures, such as white supremacy. Reactionary
forces struggle to limit the becoming of persons of color, subordinating others in a white
supremacist society. They actively bind and constrict the possibilities of earthly becoming when
it falls outside of intentional and habituated modern human systems. Affirming forces compete
against the reactive forces. They are forces for overturning the system, affirming chance and
expanding the uniting the body with what it is capable of. An ethics of avulsion is an ethics of
overturning constraining and reactionary systems of organization towards affirming and active
forces. It has profound ramifications for the agencies involved. These ramifications can be seen
in the way that reactive forces struggle to restrict the potential of bodies by capturing them
within a system, the avulsion pertaining to the liberating of bodies in the pursuit of new modes of
becoming.
The Negative Possibility of Denegation: Malabou
I delve into a third conceptual layer of avulsion through Catherine Malabou's concept of
the accident, as developed in her Ontology of the Accident ([2009] 2012). Although Malabou is
not directly bringing in the terminology of avulsion itself, her concept of destructive plasticity
can be viewed as avulsive at its core. This can be seen in her opening line which states that "in
the usual order of things, lives run their course like rivers".57 Malabou elaborates on this opening
statement all but towing the line of avulsion when she develops the comparison by pointing out
that lives can sometimes "jump their bed, without geological cause, without any subterranean
pathway to explain the spate or flood. The suddenly deviant, deviating form of these lives is
5 Catherine Malabou, Ontology of the Accident: An Essay on Destructive Plasticity (Trans. Carolyn Shread,
(Malden MA: Polity Press, 2012), 1.29
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Grossman, Jacob Wayne. Ontology of Avulsion: Posthuman Freedom and Accidental Becoming, dissertation, December 2021; Denton, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1873811/m1/35/?rotate=90: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .